


Sympathy for the Devil

by orphan_account



Series: Sympathy for the Devil [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Light Smut, Love Confessions, M/M, canon season 8, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-20 23:38:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They have been walking the thin line between love and hate for months, and now Rick is stumbling after the man who has an iron grip on his people and his heart, knowing that he has to kill him - and on such a lovely day.





	Sympathy for the Devil

His teeth smashed together with every heavy footfall, boots slamming against the ground. The harder Rick pushed, the more he wished he would fall back. The lithe figure ahead of him barreled down the hill, pressing his injured hand against his chest – and damn, Rick wished the bastard would run faster. But he had just reached the crescendo of victory after slogging through a road drenched in blood, and there was no such thing as a convenient way out. He had a child to take care of – a girl who didn’t deserve to grow up in a world that was already ravished in fear. Behind him was a whole settlement of people that would follow him into the pits of hell; so when Negan fled, Rick went after him without a thought. Yet as he stumbled towards the lone tree, he was plagued by them.

Before Rick could wallow further, the breath was knocked out of him as Lucille slammed into his abdomen. With a choked gasp, the deputy sheriff’s knees buckled and he fell to the ground. He immediately brought his hands over his head in a futile attempt to shield himself from a blow that never came. Instead, he lay there on his back, choking as he tried to suck in a breath of afternoon air.

Negan stretched out his arm, Lucille an extension of himself as she hovered just above Rick’s nose. “You really do suck ass, Rick!”

“It doesn’t” -Rick took a ragged gasp- “ _change_ anything!”

Negan rocked back on his heels, twirling Lucille with a lazy flick of his wrist. “You bet your ass it doesn’t! Get on those knees, Rick. It’s time to finish what we started on our first night together.”

_You belong to me._

There was a sneer that still made a shiver go down Rick’s spine even though the war had been won. Whether Negan caved his skull in or not – and it certainly looked that way – they had his people surrounded. No, Negan was doing this out of vengeance; there was no way in hell Maggie would let him see the sunrise.

“You know, I chose not to kill you,” Negan spat as Rick shuffled to his knees. “I wasn’t going to make a kid watch his dad die.”

At this point, Negan’s words shouldn’t have an effect on him – not when two of his friends and son lay dead and buried - but Rick was human and fallible. Chest still heaving, a tightness gripped his heart at the monster’s confession.

A _man’s_ confession.

A tired sigh escaped Rick’s lips and his head lolled forward. Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against Negan’s thigh. He swallowed before tentatively covering the hand gripping Lucille’s handle with his own. “We can still make this work. Just-just give me ten seconds.”

“Fuck you, prick.” The words were bitter, but Negan didn’t move. “A douchebag once said, ‘it doesn’t change anything.’”

“I love you.” The words came out in a rasp as Rick looked up through blue, watery eyes. They mirrored the summer sky above them, and Negan brought his injured hand to his mouth to hide his frustrated leer.

“ _Fuck!_ ” The head Savior stepped back, making Rick stumble forward. He was quick to flinch back as Lucille bared her teeth, not a hair’s breadth away from his face. “ _Fuck_ you and your weepy eyed bullshit! I smell what you’re stepping in, Rick – and it stinks!”

“I told Carl.”

The anger was wiped from Negan’s face as it went lax in shock. The bat slowly lowered as he ran a hand over his beard.

Rick talked fast, desperate to take advantage of one of the rare moments when Negan actually shut the fuck up. “He didn’t talk to me for about a week, which really isn’t anything surprising for a kid his age.” Relief flooded through him when he earned a small chuckle. Encouraged, he pressed forward. “I think he forgave me because he was already looking for peace – already looking for the _good_ in people. In the note, he hoped that people would understand.”

Negan turned his gaze up to the sky. “Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick.” Lucille fell to the grass with a finality that ran through Rick’s bones. He felt himself sag as a hand took a loose grasp of his hair before his head was gently tilted upwards. Negan’s head blocked out the sun, casting his face in shadow.

“You don’t have to do this.” Rick’s voice was hoarse as he gazed up at the man. The declaration wasn’t a lie, but a bitter truth he had been biting down for months. Those mano y mano stare downs and more than friendly arms over the shoulders had proven too much for either of them. In truth, Rick was shocked that nobody else had noticed the sexual tension that sparked between them – or where they eventually stumbled off to during pickups.

_I missed you._

Rick hadn’t known it then, but Negan _had_ missed Rick. The guy had been surrounded by Saviors and he _still_ had the gonads to threaten him. It took all Negan had not to pop a boner right there in the clearing.

Negan motioned Rick forward with a curl of his finger. “Up.”

Rick’s nails dug into the leather of Negan’s sleeves as he got to his feet. The wind blew strands of damp curls across his forehead and he jerked his head, trying to get them out of his eyes.

Negan looked over his shoulder before holding up his mangled hand, a wry smile twisting across his face. “If you got that little bitch Eugene so whipped that he could pull this stunt, you think you can get me off the hook with a slap on the ass and an empty apology?”

Through narrowed eyes, Rick jutted his chin. “The whole point of an apology is that it’s sincere.”

“It’ll _sound_ sincere.” Negan pressed his forehead against Rick’s. “The point of the apology is the apology. C’mon, cowboy. These people lick your balls more than I do – not as well, but more.”

It was hard not to fall head over heels for that charming smile, even though Negan was trying to get his way. Still, there was a warmth to his hazel eyes that had so often been filled with unfiltered fury and devastation that Rick found himself besotted.

The juxtaposition between the scrape of the bark against the back of his neck and the nearly chaste kiss Negan pressed against his lips was overwhelming, but Rick sank into him, sighing into his mouth. One hand knotted the white t-shirt that clung to Negan’s hard body, while the other raked through his slicked back hair. He shivered as Negan’s large hand slipped under his shirt and ghosted up his spine. Both men groaned as they ground their hips together, arousal glaringly apparent.

It was a familiar dance they had stepped for what felt like a hundred times. It had started off as something primal, perhaps even fueled by hate. Negan and Rick were just as ruthless between the sheets as they were together in real life – no submissive whimpers, but gritted teeth and marks that bruised. Rick had never stopped to think when the anger had stopped and his love began, but as Negan left a searing kiss behind his ear, he could pinpoint it on the day he brought Carl home.

His stomach twisted at the thought of his son.

It had been a cruel, violent, and terrible day – but it had also been strangely heartwarming, just like the radically different sensations of the bark on his back and the hand flicking open the button of his pants. It was a shock to the system to see how gentle Negan was with Judith. It was the adoration his daughter had for the man that damned him.

His effect on Rick was instantaneous. With a low moan Rick spread his legs, letting his head fall back against the tree. He watched Negan’s movements through heavy eyelids, lips parted. His hand found the back of Negan’s neck in an instant.

“Opposed to getting’ a little _freaky_?” Negan wet his lips as he bent at the knees, eyeing Rick like he was a sin. When the man nodded, Negan spat into his palm before wrapping his fingers around Ricky-dick’s _dick_. He growled low in his throat when the leader of the militia grit his teeth. “Ride ‘im, cowboy,” Negan purred, twisting his wrist, forcing Rick’s hips to stutter. He latched on to the thumping pulse behind Rick’s ear before whispering, “Better hurry up, baby. Your gang of merry assholes are just over that hill and are lookin’ for their fearless leader and my dead body.”

Rick’s eyes snapped open. Negan’s hand was down his pants and on his cock, out in the open with a stampede of people on their way. Through his haze he tucked himself back into his pants, stunned that he allowed things to get so far. “They can’t know about us. Not yet. It’s too soon.” His voice was hoarse as he zipped up his fly.

Negan tilted backwards, his uninjured hand comically cupped around his ear. “Rick Grimes, tell me if I’m hearing this right – are you saying that you’re not gonna put a bullet through my head?”

“No, not as long as you keep your mouth shut.” Rick ran his fingers up Negan’s shaggy cheek. “I don’t know how I’m gonna convince them to let you live, but it’s what Carl would want.”

“It’s what _you_ want.”

Rick couldn’t stop the breathy chuckle if he tried. He nodded his head. “Yeah,” he affirmed. “It’s what I want.” The whisper of grass announced the approach of the militia and Rick knew that they had crested the hill.

Negan was studying his boots, looking pensive. When his eyes met Rick’s, they had lost their taunting shine. “Rick, I-”

There wasn’t an immediate gush of blood. Only a splash of crimson had followed Rick’s hand as he slashed the piece of stained glass across Negan’s throat. Then a few beads seeped out of the cut before the man fell to his knees, his hands covered in scarlet as he pathetically tried to stem the bleeding.

“Look what you did,” he demanded, face fallen.

Rick didn’t want to. He dropped the glass as if it were searing hot, horrified at what he had done. “I said I wasn’t gonna put a bullet through your head,” he croaked, misty eyed. This was for a better future. Judith was too young to know the man who was bouncing her on his knee was an extortionist and a murderer.

_You were going to slit people’s throats when you first got to Alexandria just because they didn’t like the way you did things._

“Goddamn prick.” Negan didn’t look angry, but tired – like a dog that had been kicked too many times. “The only chance you have at getting laid now is if you crawl up a chicken’s ass, Grimes,” were the last words he managed before keeling over …and they stung.

“ _Shit!_ ” Rick was on his knees for a second time that day, dirt seeping into his jeans and blood oozing between his fingers as he put pressure on the wound. This was all wrong, a mistake. The blood seeped into the soil, burning into his retinas. It was the same damn shade as the pasta sauce Rick had swiped from the corner of Negan’s mouth when the kids weren’t looking.

The hand on Rick’s chest was weak. “Nope,” Negan whispered. “You don’t get your Mufasa moment. Fuck…you.” He began to hyperventilate and was forced to stop. A warm breeze picked up, mussing his dark hair and pulling the blood in sick rivulets across his skin. Rick winced as a drop lifted onto his cheek.

 “I’m sorry.” He could only gape, his mouth hanging open as he grappled for words.

Negan’s dark eyelashes fluttered closed. His nostrils flared as his lungs fought for air. “We come into this world…kicking ass or sucking ass, Rick. You do both, and I love you for it.” Rick winced as Negan’s palm cracked him across the cheek. For a man bleeding out, he had enough force to turn Rick’s head. “Fuck off.”

Rick couldn’t remember the excuse he used to let him live. He wasn’t present as he addressed his people, merely babbling while his mind was really with the man that was bleeding out behind him. But Negan had been right about him, he could talk his way out of a paper bag. Everyone but Maggie accepted the new world order, and he would have to live with her wails of sorrow for the rest of his life.

He wasn’t sure how the hell the future was going to look without his son, and now the man he loved was lying on his back being stitched back together by a stranger. How they fit together in the new world he was going to build – Rick had no idea, but he had hope.

The slap had felt like a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to dip my toe into my love of this pairing and the Stones/Carole King. Be gentle.


End file.
